Railroad lines provide an ideal location for the placement of various types of cabling. Included in this group are electrical cables and other types of communication cabling. However, because of the nature of the materials from which railway lines are constructed, it is inadvisable to simply bury a cable beneath a railroad line. The pressures and abrasive action of the ballast used to support railway lines quickly degrade any cables buried without protection. In addition, repairs to cabling may interfere with the travel of trains over the railway lines.
Various types of conduit have been provided for the protection of cables laid alongside or beneath rail lines. Examples include extruded plastic, pre-cast concrete, cast-in-place concrete, molded composite materials having random orientation of fiber-reinforcing strands therein, and steel. Concrete, both pre-cast and cast-in-place, is extremely heavy and therefore installation may be quite expensive. Extruded plastic cable troughs, both unreinforced and reinforced with randomly oriented fiber strands, have relatively low strengths and, accordingly, shorter life spans and reduced ability to withstand the rigors of installation adjacent a railway lines. Cast or molded thermoplastic materials having randomly oriented fibers tend to be somewhat stronger than unreinforced types of cabling trough, but are quite expensive. Steel cable trough can also be quite expensive. Accordingly, there is recognized a need for a cable trough for railway cabling that has high strength and is lightweight and durable and yet which is inexpensive.
These and other objectives and advantages of the invention will appear more fully from the following description, made in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein like reference characters refer to the same or similar parts throughout the several views.